An old (disk) #recordplayer takes steel needles, which have to be regularly replaced, and which are kind of rough on records.
In this little video notice that the needle is bendy. We tried a cactus thorn, and it works! They're readily available, and much softer than steel.

The #recordplayer mechanism has been returned to its owner (my "projector repair sensei") and reinstalled, and it's playing music :)

With the springs all fixed up it's time to put everything back together and wrap up this #recordplayer #restoration. But everything was covered with goopy 100-year-old oil (it looked like motor oil. Eew). So first a teardown, cleanup, and reassembly with just a few drops of light oil where needed.
Would have been a *really* quick job if (a) I had slowed down and taken more pictures of how it goes together, and (b) manage not to drop any tiny screws.

One other things I did for this #recordplayer #restoration that's just for aesthetics is getting all the rust and funk off of this crank handle arm. Started with steel wool and elbow grease, eventually a #Dremel and a wire brush attachment.

Back together and working :)
Not really together for good yet, because I didn't grease up the latest spring yet, or screw the cover onto it's barrel.
Also I want to take everything else apart and clean it all up too.
But this is nice to see.
Notice how one spring is unwinding rapidly, and the others more slowly.
When everything is all *really* back together, it'll be interesting to wind it up completely and see what the process of unwinding is like. And just how long this super-duper triple-spring mechanism can run.
#recordplayer #restoration

After all that work to fix the broken spring this #RecordPlayer I'm working on the #restoration of still didn't work. It has 3 springs and it turns out one of the other ones just wasn't grabbing onto it's shaft. There are very small hooky thing that have to grab onto the holes in the ends of the springs and things have to be lined up just right. So I had to take this spring out too, and it just needed a little bending on the end to wrap more tightly off the shaft. But first, let's get that 100-year old grease off of it. Hot (like boiling!) soapy water makes this easier.

Continuing with fixing this spring as part of a #recordplayer #restoration.
Since the inner end of the spring broke off, what remained didn't coil tight enough to wrap around the shaft.
I used a torch to soften the metal and some pliers to twist it to a tighter coil, and now it snaps on.

Man, this retired rocket engine would make a heckuva horn for an old #recordplayer!

More updates about fixing a spring for a #RecordPlayer #restoration. Not a cylinder player this time, this is a Grafonola disc player that belongs to my "movie projector sensei".
It turns out that when you mention you fix record players, a lot of people have them. And most of them need work, and if it just plain doesn't work, it's almost always the spring.
The last time I worked on a spring, it was a success, but I sort of wished I'd done a neater job. Another chance came along quicker than I expected! (Descriptions in alt text)